Demon Chained (Shadowfae Chronicles) (12 page)

Gavain swallows bitter regret, and bends to wipe her long legs one by one. Her skin smells like hot coals. A hint of pearly wetness, slicker than the rest, shows on the soft plum-red hair between her legs. His fairy senses dazzle him, colors swirling. He can't help but wonder what she'd taste like there, a demon lady, all bright with hate and hellfire, and his sharp tongue flickers restlessly on his lips before he can stop it.

Her laugh crackles like crushed glass. "Don't even think about it. I'd rather fuck my own fingers than get blown by a gutless worm like you. Hell, I'm bored. Just give me the damn lamp."

A guilty flush stings his cheeks, and he drops the towel and fetches her the lamp. The brass whispers warm in his fingers, a distant voice hissing to him like a forgotten dream, and for a moment he fumbles. The smell of jasmine swirls, a stolen memory, brass walls, dust and flowers. The lamp's girl, her inky black eyes and candy lips, fingers delicate like porcelain but melting into smoke.

Delilah snatches the lamp away, giggling in glee. "Now, girl, let's see what kind of bauble you are." She plucks the lid off with two covetous green fingernails.

A solitary wisp of smoke spirals to the ceiling.

Gavain swallows, a sharp prickle in his spine. He wants to be glad that the gemstone girl isn't there, but his longing for Tam smothers him like wet wool, leaving no room for anything except selfish fear.

Delilah peers into the lamp, shakes it, pokes her brown finger inside. "How does it work? Why isn't she mine? Is there a magic word, or something? It's empty!"

Gavin shrugs, biting back a defensive snarl. "You never said it shouldn't be."

"Empty, fairy slime." Her teeth bristle like needles, and lightning arcs between her fingers, crackling across the brass. "Empty is no good to me. I want full, you understand? Full!" Scales crawl over her shoulders and between her breasts, and she curls forward like a snake, hissing, golden venom dripping like honey from curved fangs.

Gavain summons all his defiance, and stays put. "One favor, you said. I've done what you asked. Now give me what you promised."

"What I promised? You're lucky I don't chew your limbs off and feed them to you. You're no fucking use to anyone, are you?" Delilah rattled the lamp in a hellscaled demon fist. "Do something with your pathetic little life. Find me the girl who lives in this lamp, and bring her here."

Fury twitches his joints, setting an angry flutter to wings that aren't there, and foul words seethe in his throat. He boils to scream curses at her, tell her to get her stinking teeth out of his face and go fuck herself. His tongue curls gleefully, and he bites down on it hard, blood stinging.

Delilah sneers. "Don't even think about welching on me, Gavain. I can make Tam desire you. I can just as easily make him vomit broken glass at the sight of you."

Scorching rage bubbles in Gavain's blood, and his claws rip his palms.

Coals glow scarlet in her eyes as inspiration strikes. "I know! How about this? I'll make him want me instead, and make sure he never gets any. Your feisty Tam, just like you, broken and weeping for someone he can never have. How would you like that? Or maybe I'll just kill him for good, send him back to hell and chain him to a rock so I can chew his eyeballs out every night for eternity—"

Gavain spits at her, compulsive. Fairy blood splashes on her face, and he lunges at it, teeth straining for her hateful flesh.

The tiled floor smashes into his back, impact ringing in his skull like madness. His breath crushes away. The ceiling spins overhead, his dizzy fairy senses dragging swirling lights and flaming golden rivers from the mess. Bright pain spikes his misshapen shoulder blades. If he'd had wings, they'd be broken. Fuck her.

She laughs, and licks his blood from her lips with a freshly forked tongue. "You getting the idea? Don't fight me. Just do as I say." She dances out of his vision, and water splashes as she slides back into the bath, dismissing him.

Gavain lies there for a moment, sucking in guilt-rich air. Swap the girl for Tam. The pretty smoke girl, a stranger who never did anything to Gavain but try to understand.

Resignation and longing mix in his mouth, bitter but compelling, and slide down like warm salt water to make him sick. He crawls to his feet, bones creaking, and limps out.

The stairway carpet whispers beneath his feet like a lover's accusing breath. How can he lure the lamp girl? She'll never follow him willingly. He must smell out a trick, a crafty trap for her that she won't recognize. He remembers her scent, smoke and jasmine, the rough rasp of her fragments on his tongue . . .

"Is she done?" The dry voice drifts from beneath the stairs like a specter.

Gavain's nerves twist tighter, and he twitches aside, but there's no threat in that weary question. He steps over limp outstretched legs encased in green Lycra, and gives a single nod. "With me, yeah. She's in the bath. Don't know if she's done with that."

"S'what I like about you, Gavvy. You know your place." The incubus—Kai, his name is, one of Delilah's incubi and a nasty little bastard—drags his pointed chin up with an effort and tries a weak smile, his blue lips cracking. Exhaustion pales his sky-bright skin, his face drawn and wet with sweat. Translucent wings fold limply under him, his dusty red hair trailing. A tarnished brass soultrap bottle rolls in his long-fingered grip, sticky black bubbles crusting the cork. A captured soul, no doubt Kai's gift for Delilah.

Rapture crackles the air, the incubus's sex magic, diluted with fatigue and festering with the stink of old fruit. Gavain lets it finger him, caress him, pleasure him, guilt-free need that he can taste on the back of his tongue. His pulse awakens, hard, hurting in his ears. "You look tired."

Kai taps gilded claws on the brass bottle, listless, but enspelled hunger lights in his golden eyes and the rapture grips Gavain tighter, cruel. "Occupational hazard. Wanna wake me up?"

Lust fires Gavain's fae-quick blood, flooding him with memories of Tam like hot chocolate sauce over his skin. Kai only wants to feed, to replace the energy he's lost in stealing that soul. If they screw, Gavain won't even get off. That's how an incubus kills, and Kai's got no reason to want Gavain dead. Kai wouldn't look at him twice if it weren't for his own hunger.

Hell, why not? Gavain's given more for less plenty of times before. He drops to one knee, fingers twitching with anger and loss.

Raw hunger tightens Kai's pale face, and the soultrap slips from his fingers. He slides wet blue knuckles into Gavain's hair, pulling him in for a kiss.

Gavain closes his eyes, unwilling, waiting for salt and cold fairy-sweet teeth. But the smell of brass twinkles in his nose, fresh and warm like the smoke girl's house, and . . .

The smoke girl's house. He pulls back, his hair yanking tight, the rapture sweetly persuasive but false. "You got another one of those bottles? An empty one?"

Kai trails his other hand weakly over his bag on the floor beside him, and his golden thrall bangles shift, too big on his bony blue wrists. The fist wrapped in Gavain's hair shakes, but his rapture's weak, exhausted, escapable. "Sure. Always. Why?"

Bugs clutch at Gavain's knuckles, and he mashes his fingers into a tight fist, crushing the insects to wet leggy pulp. Smoke in, cork in, gemstone girl inside. All that's missing is a lure.

And if Gavain knows one thing best, it's being bait.

All he has to do is get close enough to touch, and she's his, and the shiny foil twist of fairy lust in his pocket should take care of that. Oh, yes indeedy.

Triumph tingles his skin. "I'll trade you."

"Some life for the bottle?"

"Yeah."

"Done. Give." Kai drags him forward, his eyes glinting hungrily. At the barest touch of Kai's cold lips to his, Gavain's head swirls with distant fatigue. Kai's teeth are sharp and sweet, and his tongue tastes yellow, of stale vodka and a woman's sex. Gavain opens his mouth, letting the energy flow from him, savoring the faintness like asphyxiation.

Ten minutes later, he stumbles down the hall, laughing, his body aching with fever and his new brass bottle clutched in his hand.

***

Chapter Twelve

At last, I smashed one final wood splinter from Luke's doorjamb. The lock popped, and the door swung open. Silence greeted me, flavored by stale sweaty air and dust. I strode in and slammed the cracked door behind me. It banged open again, and I had to jam the security chain on tight to make it stay shut.

Warm morning light flooded in through the thin yellow kitchen curtains. I dropped onto the greasy couch and flung my legs over the armrest, groaning. My feet hurt, scraped with a million little cuts from so much walking without shoes. I didn't know this city and had no idea where Tam lived or how far away it was from Luke's, and the prick ordered me out into the gutter before I could grab my bag, so I had no money for a cab. By the time the pale sun climbed above the lowest buildings, I'd ended up back in town, looking for the club or something else I recognized so I could retrace my steps.

Now, finally, I was home, and anger still chewed in my guts like a yapping dog. I was past crying. I was past kicking things. I was even past feeling sorry for myself. Which left me with bleeding feet, fists that itched to punch a handsome corpse's face in, and a head pounding with ache and indignation and
what-the-hell-do-I-do-now?

Helpless. Without my lamp, that's what I am. I can't wish. I can't make people give me stuff. I can't even smoke, at least not anywhere except into the lamp, and then I'll be stuck there until he calls me out, which might be never. I can't do anything, in fact, unless Tam tells me to.

No magical powers of persuasion. No dusty little brass lamp to hide in out of the rain. Gosh, Jewel. You're an ordinary girl.

So start acting like one.

Only problem was, I wasn't sure what ordinary girls did these days when they were broke and homeless. Get a job? Pick up some rich guy? Go on the game? I didn't have a bank account or a driving license or a passport. I didn't know where to begin. The only sure thing was that I couldn't just lie here and let this happen. Gotta get a plan.

I dropped my head back on the cushions and closed my eyes with a weary sigh. So here I am, lying here and letting it happen.

But what else could I do? Sure, Tam said he'd leave me alone. But I only had his word for that—not worth much, from the guy who stole the damn lamp in the first place—and besides, something told me he wouldn't last long.

I mean, sure, he was dark and dirty and scrumptious and shoved a gun under my chin the first time we met. But when he looked at me, I sensed that human touch, a gleam of softness in his eyes behind the smart-ass remarks, an undercurrent of sorrow in his heart that made me want to wrap my arms around him and . . .

Okay, great. A shiver up my spine. Something weird and fluttery going on with my pulse. Sweat dampening my palms. You know what that is, Jewel? That's a crush, as they say these days. You're crushing on him. Give me a break.

My heart wobbled and sank. I'd forgotten it'd be like this. The lamp did more than bind my obedience. Every time someone new claims me, I get all dewy-eyed and steamy for a while. I can't help it. It's part of the binding.

But I learned my lesson with Javier. They don't love me. They never do, no matter what they say or how much affection they lavish on me. It's only the magic they want.

I wriggled on the sofa, my legs twitching. Crush or not, I didn't see Tam making the grade for sheer Jewel-hunting ruthlessness. The people who chase me don't tend to be the bleeding-hearted sort. Luna, my last master—the one who imprisoned me, curse his oily hide—Luna was hard-eyed and gorgeous with a conscience brittle as glass, and I'd known he was trouble from the moment I laid eyes on him. Pity I didn't listen to my instincts that time.

Before Luna, a wild-haired vampire gangster named Katashi who used me to murder his enemies in the Tokyo mob. Before him, Anwar, a fat Lahore pimp with no manners and a really small penis, who had me fetching grapes and rubbing him with oil while wearing see-through silk pants. And before him Shazad, that black-hearted Moorish sorcerer, seven hundred years old with malice to match, who wrested me from the fickle hands of the love of my life.

I'd warned Javier about Shazad. Pleaded, after we made love at midnight on crisp green grass in the woods by the shadow of the Alhambra. Begged him with his sparking lips on mine to leave the Moor's treasure alone. But my dark-eyed fairy thief just grinned, with that impish glint that meant trouble, and whispered something hopelessly romantic about pearls for my hair and diamonds that'd sparkle like my eyes.

When a girl's in love, that kind of thing matters more than common sense.

God, I can still taste him now, cloves and cinnamon, his dark hair whispering on my face, his lips so reverent, trailing violet fairy fire over my skin . . .

Nope. Don't do it, Jewel. Javier gave you up. You killed him. Let it alone.

I dragged myself off the couch and limped into the kitchen on aching feet. Dishes still stacked the sink, crusted with rainbows of week-old food, and I fished out a glass and filled it with water. Rust gritted my tongue, but at least it was cold and wet.